


3rd measurement in C

by tasteslikemiso



Series: hard to live [5]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe, Domestic Violence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 22:08:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/945220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tasteslikemiso/pseuds/tasteslikemiso
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Don't say that I'm the one you want to lose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	3rd measurement in C

He remembers the day Tatsuki stormed out of their apartment and never came back. 

The fight had started loud and gotten louder, which wasn't unusual for them back then. She had been yelling, wouldn't get out of his face, wouldn't stop yelling. "Who are you to tell me what to do?" he said, "I thought we were past all this bullshit" she said and he hit her, shoving her down and it felt better and worse all at once. They had sparred before, but he had never hit her like that, bringing his full strength to bear and crashing her head into the edge of the nightstand. She was bleeding and he couldn't take it back, he wanted her to hit him back but she wouldn't. He kept yelling, trying to provoke her back into the fight - make it normal again, make it okay again. She was bleeding when she left the apartment and he was screaming at an empty room.

The days after that were harder to recall clearly, there was a lot of drinking and a lot of picking fights (all that old bullshit, Tatsuki would have said). Orihime had come by, she left a note explaining she packed up Tatsuki-chan's stuff and yes she's staying at our apartment and wouldn't you please stop calling at all hours of the night because she's not ever going to pick up. Ichigo didn't come at first, which struck Shiro as odd - his brother never missed a chance to play the hero, but he came a few days later with all the self-righteous fury Shiro expected.

A sound that was somewhere between a knock and a battering ram woke him up one afternoon. "Shiro!! You fucking piece of shit! Open up!" 

Ichigo beating the shit out of him wasn't the highlight of his week, but Shiro did learn a few useful things from their "conversation." Firstly, that Tatsuki was no longer staying with Orihime and Ishida (and so he actually should stop calling their place). Second, that she had refused to say anything on the matter of their break-up and claimed that the injury resulted from a match. And third, that she had just quit couchsurfing at Orhime's and moved into Ichigo's for the time being.

"If you think that Inoue or I bought that it was 'an accident' for one fucking second, you're fucking kidding yourself! I always knew you were no good for her, why can't you get your fucking act together long enough to hold onto the best damn thing that ever happened to you?!"

Ichigo's tirade required very little on Shiro's part to keep going, but eventually the string of expletives petered out and Ichigo left, slamming the door behind him. Shiro didn't ask to be improved, but the people in his life seemed hellbent on trying to do it anyway. He didn't ask to be constantly compared to Ichigo, med-student-probably-saves-kittens-from-trees-in-his-spare-time-Ichigo, his twin brother and better in every way. And he certainly didn't ask to fall in love with Tatsuki, the only person he knew with a saving-people complex large enough to rival his brother's.

Shiro remembers wanting nothing more from his life than for everyone to fuck off and leave him alone. The day Tatsuki left him, they did.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the October 5, 2005 prompt from 31_days (and the Saosin song of the same name). Summary taken from the song's lyrics. This is the first drabble where I've felt that I'm not done writing in this universe. I might pick it up again later in this set.


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